Constant fraction discriminator in pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinding

Abstract

Constant fraction discriminator (CFD) is one of theoretic method which can locate timing point at same fraction of echo pulse in pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinding. In this paper, the theory of CFD method was analyzed in reality condition. The design, simulation and printed-circuit-board (PCB) performance of CFD circuit were shown. Finally, an over amplified method was introduced, by which the influence of direct-current (DC) bias error could be reduced. The experimental results showed that timing discriminator could set the timing point to a certain point on echo pulse, which did not depend on the amplitude of echo pulse.

Keywords

constant fraction discriminator (CFD) / time-of-flight (TOF) / pulsed TOF laser rangending / direct-current (DC) bias error

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Acknowledgement

This work was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 40801123).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg